


The Deer Mouse

by chartruscan



Category: Ladyhawke (1985), The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Post-Season/Series 04 Finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 20:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20197852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chartruscan/pseuds/chartruscan
Summary: AKA Birdbrains/FeatherdickBambi is the Mouse. Quentin is the Hawk. And Eliot is the Wolf.The Ladyhawke crossover you never asked for.(Plz halp name this fic, or it’s gonna get stuck like my cat’s name, which for the record is Nunya Bizness)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is not an AU. 
> 
> Unbeta’d, but I definitely need one, if anyone is willing!
> 
> This will be a WIP, which is so hypocritical of me, for reasons, but I do have the plot fleshed out in my brain from beginning to end (amazing what some good tunes and 14 hours of driving can accomplish). I just can’t promise that I’m the most skilled writer. Please bear with, and all constructive criticisms are welcome!
> 
> Also, I have loved all of the creative genius that has sprung from this finale. There is comfort and fucking headcanon in that. 
> 
> I got a hankering for some classic Rutger Hauer and somehow I married that idea to The Magicians (I’ll be honest, it’s because TM is always on my mind: I haven’t had this level of passion since Firefly). 
> 
> But I’m gonna try and wiggle out of some of the damage caused by season 4 with one hand tied behind my back and treat it all as canon. *fingers crossed*
> 
> If you haven’t seen Ladyhawke, you should. Yes, the score is 95% listen-from-the-hall. But I loved it as a child, and I love it as an adult.

“This is as far as I go, brother.” 

Those words rung in his ears. 

Holy shit he was dead.

The buzz of fluorescent lights and the hard slap of his shoes, all of that went away when he stepped through the unassuming white-framed doorway.

A hush blanketed the room he found himself in, so thick he thought he’d gone deaf. He gave another sniffle. Nope, there was still sound.

He looked down, where his shoes were sinking into a plush carpet. Sunlight streamed through windows hung with heavy drapes. Red brocade wallpaper. High ceilings.

He looked around, brow furrowed in confusion. Trickling in through the closed door and walls, he heard feet running. Chattering and giggles. It sounded like a schoolyard.

“Elysium,” he muttered to himself. Definitely in the Underworld. Christ, he didn’t want to be dead. It had been unnerving coming here with Julia, but at least he’d had round-trip fare. The idea of being here, or somewhere like Elysium, forever, made his mind flinch. He vaguely wondered why he wasn’t at reception. There was still a process, right? A protocol? Pins to knock down and karmic circles to find? He was dead. Everytime the thought came to him, it felt like a brand new epiphany. Something he had to accept, because he was inhabiting his death. He was dead.

_He was dead._ Eureka!

A door closed behind him. He hadn’t heard it open. Pulling a sleeve over his hand, he scrubbed at his face and turned to face whomever this was.

A handsome man stood before him.  
“Hello, Quentin,” the man greeted, his voice cultured and regal. A hint of Nigerian.

Quentin’s mouth worked as he fumbled for a response, finally settling on an awkward “Um, hi,” accompanied by another small sniff. He crossed his arms. Uncrossed them.

The man didn’t look happy as he twirled a long feather, cinnamon-red and striped in black. He looked from it to Quentin.

“Do you know where you are, Quentin?” the man asked in cultured but clipped tones.

Quentin folded his arms, looked around again. Pushed his too short hair behind his ear, and it promptly fell back over his cheek. Before he could stutter out an answer, the man interrupted: “This was my wife’s house.”

Quentin paused, eyes flicking back and forth as his mind collected and pieced together strands of information. “This, uh, this is Elysium. Oh my god, OLU, uh, I, Our Lady Under-- Persephone, which, oh shit, you’re--”

Hades eyes snapped from the feather to Quentin. “You fucking kids keep fucking shit up. And while I normally wouldn’t care, your shit is rolling down onto my doorstep. Your insane attempts to fix things that end up breaking even more shit.”  
Quentin tried to protest.

“So you are going to help fix what you’ve fucked up.”

“Um, you just explained why, uh, we should stop trying to fix things.” Hades held out the feather.

“How could I even help a-- a-- a god? I’m dead! I’m _done_! Right?”

“You are dead, this is true. But you are far from done. You had a split second where in a moment of exhaustion you stopped running, where you just wanted to rest. I’m sorry, Quentin, but your work has only just begun.”

Hades guestered one more time with the feather. Quentin reached out a hand, first hesitant, then, with his jaw clenched, he took the quill into his fingertips. Hades didn’t let go. Quentin widened his eyes.  
“You’re life starts now, Quentin.”

Quentin rolled his eyes and pulled the feather free.

Immediately he felt a soft pressure on his shoulders, pushing him down, even as he felt himself rising, his body flowing into hollow bones. It was unlike his transformation before flying to Brakebills South, so swift and painless, lacking in body horror unlike the last time. So swift his human mind was gone in an instant, leaving only a bird brain that wanted _wind! fly! up!_ And so he beat his wings, his powerful wings, so much more powerful than a goose’s, his body so much more light and agile. A magnetic line seemed to pull him further up, through the ceiling, through stalactites surrounded by celestial bodies. Up and up, he reveled in the heady freedom and joy and simple rightness. He screamed when he got his first breath of real air, in real lungs. It was raw and powerful and vicious. _Kee-eeeee-arr!!!_

Nothing else distracted his simple bird intelligence. He knew his purpose, his sole focus: find the man in black.

Find Eliot.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old Spice

On a hillside in Fillory, crowned in the glorious reds and oranges of Autumn, Margo growled, “The _fuck_ did they do to my castle?”

A small group of farmers just then was coming up the forest road with a rather meager harvest in a wheelbarrow.

“Uh, pardon me sir.” Eliot retrieved some of his charm, dulled as it was by his numbing grief, “Crazy question, but Fillory is still ruled by Acting High King Fen, right?”

“If this is some kind of loyalty test—“

“Uh, no no. Uh, we’ve just been away for awhile.”

“The Dark King reigns, glory to his rule. High King Fen, and Josh the Fresh Prince were overthrown three hundred years ago. The gods curse them both.” The farmer picked his wheelbarrow back up. “Have a good day.”

Margo and Eliot stared in horror, not at anything in particular, and certainly not at each other, as the farmers continued on their way. The last time she’d seen Josh, she’d just been banished to save Eliot, and _we belong_ had been blasting in her ears.

A flash of light flared across the horizon, immediately catching their gazes.

“Margo,” Eliot’s voice lilted a little higher. “What the fuck just happened to your castle that was already fucked with?”

Instead of the over-spired, double-wide version of Castle-Whitespire-apparently-300-years-in-the-future, they saw a medieval village scaling a hill, or perhaps growing out of it. All toothy stone and romantically picturesque in the late afternoon light. Beyond it was a castle, with four squat blocky towers. Margo felt a twinge of familiarity.

Margo heard a whooshing noise next to her. When she turned, her fairy eye gave her cognitive dissonance. She saw Eliot standing next to her, leaning on his cane, but she also saw—

“I’m on a horse,” Eliot murmured in wonderment.

Okay, Margo had just about had it.

“Why the fuck are you in an Old Spice commercial?”

He was still dressed in mourning blacks, but instead of a sharp suit and tie with drifting white petals crowning his hair, he was hooded and cloaked. And sitting astride an enormous black beautiful horse. A Friesian stallion if Margo knew her horses. And Margo fucking knew her horses. Or, Margo knew her fucking horses. If you knew what Margo meant. Eyebrow waggle.

Eliot drew in a sharp breath. “I wish I could appreciate that more,” he murmured. He glanced at his gloved hands. The horse bore him patiently.

Margo knew this. Medieval castle and village, big fucking beautiful horse, enormous sword glinting silver in the dying light, crossbow on the saddle. Worst film score ever.

“I know this! Eliot!” She had to squint her left eye to keep the double vision at bay. The horse shifted as she grabbed at Eliot’s knee.

“Jesus, Bambi.” Eliot’s voice still couldn’t quite muster up the energy to seem like it belonged to a living, feeling creature. It was like he was going through the motions expected of him. “Why am I on a horse?”

“This is some seriously fucked up shit.” She shifted her hand to cover her fairy eye for a moment. “There’s a glamour on you, on Fillory. Or maybe it’s on me, or . . . It’s that movie!”

Eliot looked distractedly at Margo, “Wha-at?”

“You know!” She clapped her hands. “Michelle Pfeiffer when she was super jailbait! The Blade Runner guy! ‘Tears in the rain!’”

Eliot pushed the hood off of his head, looking around eyes wide, taking in his surroundings. “You’re right,” he breathed, his hand going to his throat. He closed his eyes, inhaling. “A day without night, a night without a day.” Opening his eyes, he frowned, “that never made sense to me.”

“El, we need to get back to the portal, maybe Fen and Josh were banished back to Earth like the Chatwins.” But she could see the glamour was solidifying, both of her eyes were showing the same thing now.

“Rutger Hauer was soooo beautiful then.” He paused, gazing at Margo. “OH em gee, Margo, am I Etienne Navarre?”

She slapped his thigh, which was about as high as she could reach. Otherwise she would have slapped him in the nutsack. But it was the most animated he’d been since . . . Well, since.

“We’re in a cocksucking glamour, in the wrong time, El! Chill with the cosplay!”

But Eliot was gazing rapturously out at the hillside. “If I’m Navarre, then who does that make you?” There was a popping sound, and when he turned his head, Margo was gone.

“Bambi?”

* * *

Somewhere deep in the bowels of the castle formerly known as Whitespire, Margo found herself entombed in darkness. 

“Well. _Fuck_.”


End file.
